China vows to fight pollution 'with all might'

Statues of Pandas are seen on a polluted day in Beijing January 14, 2015. Awareness of the dangers of Beijing's skies is on the rise, thanks to growing data on its air quality. China will "declare war on pollution," Premier Li Keqiang told parliament in an opening address in 2014. A tougher environmental law took effect on Jan. 1, while a new environment minister took charge on Friday. Picture taken on January 14, 2015.
REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon (CHINA - Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY ENVIRONMENT BUSINESS)

The Chinese public are increasingly enraged by hazardous
smog that regularly blankets cities, as well as water and soil that are
laced with heavy metals and various other toxic pollutants.

"Environment pollution is a blight on people's quality of
life and a trouble that weighs on their hearts," Li told the opening of
the annual National People's Congress (NPC), the country's
communist-controlled legislature.

"We must fight it with all our might," he said.

His comments came after an online documentary on China's
notorious smog was released over the weekend criticising the
government's action on the issue and immediately became a viral
sensation, with 155 million views by the next day according to state
media.

Authorities have since reportedly told Chinese media to tone down their coverage of the film.

Li's rhetoric resembled promises he made last year, when he
declared a "war" on pollution, but the subject was not as prominent in
his address, coming after other economic priorities.

China this year began enforcement of a
new environmental law -- the first in 25 years -- imposing tougher
penalties and pledging that violators will be "named and shamed".

Li pledged that the government would implement existing
measures to tackle air pollution, and crack down on polluters and
officials who sometimes connive with them.

"We must... crack down on those guilty of creating illegal
emissions and ensure they pay a heavy price for such offences; and hold
those who allow illegal emissions to account, punishing them
accordingly," he said.

Recent studies have shown that roughly two-thirds of China's soil is estimated to be polluted, and that 60 percent of underground water is too contaminated to drink.

In a paper published in medical journal The Lancet, a
retired health minister acknowledged that air pollution may lead to as
many as half a million premature deaths each year.

China is also under international
pressure to reduce its emissions of climate change-causing carbon
dioxide, which are the largest in the world.

China has not pledged any absolute reductions in carbon emissions, but has said they will peak "around 2030".

It has also pledged that 20 percent of its energy would
come from renewable sources by 2030, a colossal undertaking equivalent
to powering the United States national grid purely through non-fossil
fuels.

The share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption
reached 11.2 percent last year, up from 10.1 percent a year ago,
according to a report submitted to the NPC Thursday by the National
Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning
agency.

The amount of emissions per unit of GDP fell by 6.2 percent in 2014, it said.

Li said China expects to reduce that
further by "more than 3.1 percent" this year, adding it aims to stop
coal consumption growing "in key areas".